A change of pace

It's funny how life works sometimes. Last night as a buddy and I were sitting out in our office on the flightline lamenting what a boring day it had been, the rocket attack sirens start blaring followed by a the faint scream of a rocket passing overhead and then the dull unmistakable *whoomp whoomp!* thudding of rocket warheads. We walked out onto our porch to watch the fireworks when the sirens went off again and more rockets hit. We get rocketed fairly regularly but it's usually just ones and twos so this was a bit different already.

Now, on the base here they have what they call the giant voice. It's a system of giant speakers set up on towers scattered throughout the base. An office that coordinates the security of the base has the microphone for the speakers and is crewed primarily by British soldiers. I love the Brits but sometimes it can be tough to understand what they're saying. And the speakers don't make it any easier because they are wired in series and there is a slight delay from one to the next. So when tower A starts saying something, it'll go for a second or two before tower B kicks in, and it goes on down the line until you've got 20 different towers each shouting a different syllable of the same sentence. Throw in what would otherwise be a charming British accent, and the resulting screeching inevitably confuses 24,000 people at once. It's even more amusing when the sirens go off because the delay also affects the sound of that, and then you have 20 different towers all simultaneously blaring a different pitch of the siren. That sound makes the dogs howl.

But yeah, that went on for a bit and then the giant voice began hollering that there was a ground attack in progress from the north. We were just a couple hundred yards from the northwestern perimeter of the base so this was something of a concern and we climbed up on the roof of our building just in case some angry little men came wandering by on the ground level and set out a couple of infrared markers to identify ourselves as friendly to the attack choppers and UAV's orbiting overhead.

We sat and sipped our instant lemonade and munched on MRE crackers for another 20 minutes or so before we started seeing tracer rounds and flares around the perimeter. Suddenly out of dark sky tracers came pouring from an unseen helicopter and ricocheted in all different directions. Then the distinctive *whoosh!* and I could trace the path of the launched missile as it trailed sparks across the sky before it slammed into the ground right next to the fence in a bursting flash of orange streamers, not unlike the fireworks we used to shoot at each other as kids. *whoosh...BOOM!* Another! Some more gunfire rattled off and then the noise faded and all we could hear was the distant droning of aircraft engines overhead and the hum of generators.

A few minutes went by and I was just starting to gnaw the beef jerky strips in my MRE when more automatic weapons opened up outside the nearby fence, quickly followed by more machine gun fire from the choppers. A couple of dull explosions followed and then a helicopter came in real low and must've emptied a whole rocket pod right on the fence. There were a few more scattered bursts of machinegun fire that took out some of the lights on the compound between us and the fence, but it pretty much quieted down as I imagine whatever survivors were left tried to beat it back to the safety of their villages. The base was on lockdown so we just went back in the office and locked the door and went to sleep, me on the floor and my buddy on the desk, and I slept like a log until 0530. Not necessarily dangerous to me, but it was quite an evening.

As I watched the furious pounding of missiles, rockets, and machineguns, I felt immensely grateful that I have all of these assets on my side to protect me. At the same time I felt a tremendous pity for the terror that must have gripped the poor dumb bastards caught in the wire. Imagine some idiot mullah getting you all fired up to go kill yourself some infidels and claim whatever glory awaits a martyr, and your last moments on Earth are spent running through the darkness pursued by some terrifying attack helicopters that you can hear but not see, and knowing that you're gonna die for absolutely nothing more than getting close enough to maybe touch the perimeter fence, and for some big Al Qaida clown to make headlines for a day or two to show how they're really dishing it out to the infidel invaders. What a waste of life.